5.  The applicant was born in 1937 and lives in Stochov, the Czech Republic.
6.  On 2 May 1988 the applicant’s former wife (“the claimant”) instituted civil proceedings for the division of matrimonial property before Kladno District Court.
7.  Between January 1989 and August 1993 the District Court sought a valuation by five sworn experts of the movable and immovable property in dispute. On 18 April 1994 it divided the property.
8.  In February 1995 Prague Regional Court, on an appeal by the applicant, quashed the judgment of 18 April 1994 and remitted the case to the District Court which, in March 1995, ordered a new expert report to assess the value of the real estate belonging to the matrimonial property. In September 1995 the District Court requested the applicant to find alternative counsel in the specified time period, as it had been impossible to serve documents on his original counsel.
9.   In May 1995 and February 1996 the expert witness informed the District Court that the applicant had prevented him from entering his house to estimate the value of the real estate. On 26 February 1996 the District Court fined the applicant for preventing the expert witness from collecting data for his report. The report was drawn up in January 1997.
10.  In March 1999 the District Court delivered a judgment by which it made a new decision on the division of the matrimonial property. In February 2000 the Regional Court, following the applicant’s appeal, quashed the judgment and sent the case back to the District Court which, on 5 June 2001, adopted a third judgment.
11.  This judgment was modified by the Regional Court on 16 July 2002 on appeals by the parties.
12.  In November 2002 the applicant lodged an appeal on points of law alleging, inter alia, that the real estate should not have been included in the matrimonial property.
13.  In the meantime, on 28 February 2003, the District Court had ordered enforcement of the last two judgments. On 30 October 2003 it appointed an expert witness to evaluate the real estate for the purpose of the enforcement, and ordered the applicant to cooperate with him.
14.  On 29 January 2004 the Supreme Court quashed the last judgments of 2001 and 2002 and remitted the case to the District Court which, on 10 October 2006, discontinued the enforcement proceedings.
15.  On 23 August 2004 the claimant died and her new husband entered the proceedings as a legal successor.
16.  On 14 February 2007 the District Court divided the matrimonial property for the fourth time. On 21 September 2007 it corrected clerical errors in the judgment.
17.  On 8 January 2008 the Regional Court quashed this judgment and sent the case back to the District Court which, on 6 March 2008, ruled that the claimant’s three children were also entitled to join the proceedings.
18.  On 28 March 2008 the claimant’s new husband died and his two children entered the proceedings as his legal successors. On 8 August 2008 the applicant withdrew the power of attorney from his counsel.
19.  On 10 February 2009 the District Court delivered its fifth judgment on the division of the property.
20.  On 30 April 2009 the Regional Court, following an appeal lodged by the applicant on 19 March 2009, quashed this judgment. In June 2009 the applicant waived his right to court-appointed counsel.
21.  On 24 June 2009 the District Court discontinued the proceedings, as the claimants had withdrawn their claims. In response to an appeal by the applicant, on 12 November 2009 the Regional Court quashed the District Court’s decision as erroneous.
22.  Between 8 December 2009 and 19 February 2010 the case file was at Prague 2 District Court for proceedings for damages arising from the unreasonable length of the proceedings. On 1 February 2010 the applicant reported his new attorney to the Czech Bar Association for fraudulent behaviour.
23.  On 24 February 2010 Kladno District Court handed down its sixth judgment on the division of the property.
24.  On the applicant’s appeal, this judgment was modified by the Regional Court on 14 October 2010, and became final on 22 November 2010. As a result, the applicant was assigned the real estate and all the remaining movable property and was ordered to pay compensation to the claimants for their share. In his letter of 27 January 2011, the applicant informed the Court that he had lodged an appeal on points of laws before the Supreme Court. It thus seems that the proceedings remain pending.
25.  On 16 April 2007 the applicant claimed compensation for non-pecuniary damage arising from the excessive length of the proceedings with the Ministry of Justice under Act No. 82/1998 as amended by Act no. 160/2006. He specified the non-pecuniary damage that he had suffered at 285,000 Czech korunas (CZK, 10,962 euros (EUR)), the pecuniary damage at CZK 2,000,000 (EUR 76,923) and the “loss of time and costs” at CZK 179,494 (EUR 6,903).
26.  On 3 August 2007 the Ministry confirmed receipt of the applicant’s claim and requested further documents to substantiate the non-pecuniary damage claim. On 27 August 2007 the applicant provided the Ministry with the requested documents.
27.  As the Ministry did not deal with the applicant’s request within the six-month statutory time-limit, he brought a civil action for damages against the Ministry on 6 November 2007.
28.  In a letter of 22 February 2008 the Ministry of Justice acknowledged that the proceedings were unreasonably lengthy and had suffered from administrative malpractice within the meaning of section 13 of Law no. 82/1998. The Ministry relied on the Court’s case-law in its determination of just satisfaction. Taking into account the relative complexity of the proceedings, the death of one of the parties during the proceedings and the applicant’s uncooperativeness with the expert witness in 1995-96 the Ministry awarded the applicant CZK 85,000 (EUR 3,270) for non-pecuniary damage. Further it concluded that there had not been any causal link between the legal costs and the claims for compensation for pecuniary damage on the one hand and the length of the proceedings on the other, so these claims were denied. The applicant received the sum on 3 March 2008.
29.  On 20 September 2010 Prague 2 District Court granted the applicant’s civil action in part and awarded him CZK 75,500 (EUR 3,060) in just satisfaction in addition to the award made by the Ministry. The court concluded that the proceedings on merits had overall lasted for more than twenty-two years and that they had been complex to a certain extent. It further considered that the applicant had contributed to the length of the proceedings by causing delays amounting to five years and that the expert witnesses and other parties had delayed the proceedings by more than two years. The court admitted that the remaining fourteen and a half years were attributable to the State, and that despite the patrimonial character of the proceedings the outcome was significant for the applicant as he was elderly, was not in good health and the proceedings concerned, inter alia, his place of residence. The court then deducted seven and a half years from the overall length of the proceedings, which represented the delay not caused by the State, and determined the default sum to be awarded to the applicant accordingly. This sum was adjusted by percentage rates representing the complexity of the case (-20%), the number of instances involved (-20%), the conduct of the applicant (-26%), his health and age and what was at stake for him (+20%). The final just satisfaction consisted of two parts. Firstly, the applicant was awarded CZK 45,500 (EUR 1,844), on top of the sum awarded by the Ministry, for the length of the proceedings on merits. Moreover, the court acknowledged that the compensatory proceedings had themselves been lengthy, and awarded the applicant an extra CZK 30,000 (EUR 1,216) for this reason.
30.  On 2 November 2010 the overall sum was transferred to the applicant. The judgment became final on 9 November 2010. The applicant challenged it on 20 November 2010 and applied for a waiver of the time-limit for appeal due to his hospitalisation. This request was denied as belated. It appears that no formal decision has been taken on the appeal.